


The Transitive Property of Human Relationships

by Emily_Nicaoidh



Series: Yuuri!!! Under the Hill [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: M/M, VictUuri, trickster archfey!viktor, viktuuri
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 09:17:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13073838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emily_Nicaoidh/pseuds/Emily_Nicaoidh
Summary: Yuuri wakes up with a trickster archfey king in his bed who he happens to be engaged to. This is the story of their first day in the human world as fiancés, and how Viktor grasps certain properties of human relationships faster than others.





	The Transitive Property of Human Relationships

When Yuuri awoke the next morning, he noticed two things. First, the archfey king, who was sprawled across Yuuri, snored. And second, the ivy crown that said archfey had apparently been too tired to remove had grown a fightening amount of tendrils during the night, and was twined around Yuuri's arms, shoulders, and waist, holding him tightly to the naked archfey's side.

 

"Hey," Yuuri said, wiggling am arm to get it loose enough to poke at his companion's shoulder, "wake up. You've got me all tangled up here."

 

Viktor came awake with a hiss, eyes darting back and forth, taking in his sourroundings, then calming when he appeared to remember where he was.

 

"Let me out of here," Yuuri repeated.

 

"You're mine," Viktor said, as if that were remotely relevant.

 

"Sure, sure, now untie me," Yuuri said. "I really need to use the bathroom."

 

Viktor acquiesced with a nod, and the tendrils of ivy retreated and re-formed themselves into the crown that Yuuri had seen before. Yuuri rose and dashed out the door and down the hall to the bathroom.

 

Viktor rose and scooped up his ivy cloak, letting it settle over his shoulders. Yuuri returned from the bathroom to find the archfey standing in the middle of his bedroom, looking ill at ease.

 

Yuuri pulled on the pants and jacket he had worn the night before, then extended a hand to Viktor. For whatever reason, this seemed to be an effective way to get the archfey to go where he wanted. 

 

"Let's go downstairs and have breakfast, and you can meet my parents," Yuuri suggested.

 

Viktor followed Yuuri down the stairs and into the kitchen, where Katsuki Hiroko was lifting a pot of rice out of a rice cooker. 

 

"Yuuri! You didn't tell us you were bringing a friend home," she said, fishing in the cabinet for an extra bowl and spoon. "Have some miso!" She waved at the large pot in the center of the table.

 

"I um..didn't really know I'd be bringing a friend home," Yuuri admitted. "Mom, this is Viktor."

 

Viktor glared at Yuuri for a moment, then nodded his head slightly. Yuuri figured the ivy crown must be attached to his hair somehow, since it didn't budge.

 

"Technically speaking I'm his fiancé," Viktor corrected.

 

"Vicchan! Welcome! Come have some breakfast," Hiroko said. 

 

Viktor apparently let the nickname pass uncontested, and eyed the pot of miso with suspicion. "Is this an attempt to trap me in your realm?" He asked, leveling an icy stare at Yuuri.

 

"No! Our food doesn't work the way yours does," Yuuri said. 

 

Viktor still appeared uncertain, but allowed Yuuri to serve him a bowl of miso. He eyed it warily, and eventually lifted a small spoonfull to his mouth.

 

"It's delicious!" His eyes went wide with surprise.

 

Hiroko clapped her hands in delight.

 

 

Yuuri wasn't technically on duty that day, since he had been the night before, but after breakfast he decided to head down the the guard tower anyway, just to check in with Phichit. Viktor said nothing when Yuuri told him his plans, but Yuuri could have sworn he felt the circlet of ivy around his wrist tighten a little. 

 

Viktor trailed silently behind Yuuri on his walk to the gatehouse, causing more than a few turned heads and discontented mutters to follow them down the street. 

 

Yuuri was just glad that nobody seemed to have the guts to confront him about the archfey walking behind him. When they turned the first corner, Yuuri snuck a glance back at Viktor and had to stifle a giggle when he realized that the archfey was glaring menacingly at everyone around them.

 

They passed Leo and Guang-hong, who were both straggling home from a long but uneventful night on guard duty, and the pair stared openly at Yuuri and Viktor. Probably mostly at Viktor, Yuuri decided. They archfey king had done something with his ivy cloak so that it now had a four foot train which floated along behind him, never touching the ground. 

 

"Yuuri!" Phichit's voice floated down to them from the guard tower when they arrived, and Yuuri couldn't hide a grin as he pulled open the side door and usered Viktor up the stairs. They passed several guards just suiting up for reconaissance duty but didn't stop until they were at the office that sat overtop of the main city gates.

 

"What are you doing here? It's your day off," Phichit asked. 

 

"I wanted to talk to you in private, an this was the fastest way to do that," Yuuri said, looking sidelong at Viktor, who was circling the room examining the various iron-containing weapons hung on the walls. 

 

"About?" 

 

"Him, obviously," Yuuri replied. 

 

Viktor turned and stared at Yuuri. 

 

"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone your name without asking you first," Yuuri promised, guessing at the source of Viktor's alarm.

 

The ivy circlet on his wrist tightened briefly, then loosened.

 

"I'm going for a walk," Viktor announced, and flounced out the door.

 

"Well?"

 

"Well what?"

 

"Spill, Katsuki. Why is an archfey king following you around? How did you get him to come back with you?"

 

"He sort of insisted," Yuuri said slowly. "Something his, I don't know, advisor? Friend maybe? Said to him while I was there made him mad and he just sort of demanded that I not leave without him."

 

"Wow." Phichit's eyes were wide. "So you met two of them down there and made it out alive? Badass, Yuuri."

 

Yuuri laughed nervously. "I don't know about that. I made some really dumb mistakes." He told Phichit about the first fall, the scratch on his ankle, and showed him the ivy vine circling his wrist. "I thought I was on guard against those kinds of tricks and I missed every single one."

 

"It's amazing you made it out," Phichit agreed.

 

"I'm still not sure how that happened," Yuuri admitted. "I don't know why he wants to be up here, you know? What does he get out of it?"

 

"The joy of your company?" Phichit asked, raising his eyebrows suggestively.

 

Yuuri punched him in the shoulder, which turned out to be a mistake as Phichit was wearing armor and he was not. "Peach! No! I haven't slept with him! Well," he admitted, blushing slightly, "technically I did sleep with him, but I didn't -sleep with him."

 

"But you will." It was not a question.

 

"Have you seen him? He's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," Yuuri lamented. "Of course I will. If he wants to. Sometime. Not anytime soon. I'm trying to be responsible about this."

 

"You ran off on Halloween on an insane deathwish of a quest and came back engaged to a trickster archfey king. I think responsible went out the window a long time ago," Phichit said soberly.

 

Yuuri sighed. "I feel like I'm in over my head here."

 

"You somehow got him to come up here though," Phichit pointed out. "That's pretty big."

 

"I just don't know what to do now," Yuuri said.

 

"Well, we could go find your fiancé before he gets himself in trouble," Phichit suggested. "I have a suspicion that he was either going to scope out our defenses for you know, invasion purposes, or pick a fight with JJ."

 

"Oh my god, JJ's here today?" Yuuri groaned.

 

"Yeah, he's on duty in the main hall all day."

 

"Fuck. Let's get down there before they start an interspecies war."

 

The main guard hall was mostly empty; by mid-morning, all those assinged to patrol routes had already left for the day and those off-duty were usually still asleep, or out making the most of their day off in the markets and alehouses.

 

Two guards lounged at a corner table, their shields resting haphazardly against the legs of their chairs, laughing together at a shared story over their pints of ale.

 

Yuuri's attention was immediately drawn to the silver-ahired, ivy-crowned archfey standing stiffly at the bar beside a tall, black-haired guard.

 

"I'm the king!"

 

"No, you're not. I am," Viktor said, and even from a distance Yuuri could hear the edge of ice in his voice.

 

"I'm the king of the guards!" JJ announced.

 

"I'm engaged to Yuuri. He's the captain of the guards. I'm the king under the hill. Therefore, I am the king of the guards," Viktor explained, as patiently as he was able. For someone who had spent little to no time among humans, his grasp of the transitive property of human social hierarchies was frighteningly accurate. 

 

"Um, I think I better go try and de-escalate this," Yuuri said to Phichit, who laughed. 

 

"I can't believe your life, Yuuri," Phichit said. "You saved our village by getting engaged to the king under the hill? Who does that?"

 

"Me, apparently," Yuuri said. "You should talk to him, he's...nice. When he's not intentionally being scary," Yuuri corrected, glaring at his fiancé, who was currently smiling and showing JJ all of his very sharp teeth.

 

"So," Yuuri said, hurrying over to stand as close to Viktor as he could without treading on the train of his ivy cloak, "how are things?"

 

"You should punish your insolent underling," Viktor hissed, not breaking his glare at JJ.

 

"Um, i'm probably not going to do that," Yuuri said, trying to keep his tone light. "What if we go do something else instead? I'm done with my errand here."

 

Something about that caught Viktor's attention, and he turned his head sharply to face Yuuri. "Yes. I want to experience your human market," he said.

 

"We just call it the market," Yuuri replied, amused. "But sure. Let's go."

 

"I'm going too," Phichit announced. "JJ, tell Mila she's in charge while we're gone."

 

JJ did not reply to this, possibly because Viktor was now smirking at him in a way that was at once triumphant and threatening.

 

"What do you want to get at the market?" Phichit asked, deliberately walking slowly enough to keep pace with Viktor, who once again trailed a few steps behind Yuuri.

 

The early November wind was beginning to pick up, and Yuuri pulled a knit hat out of his coat pocket and put it on. Viktor hadn't changed his cloak again since adding the train, which Yuuri guessed was for intimidation purposes, but the archfey had implied earlier that cold didn't affect him the way it did Yuuri. Clothes seemed to be largely optional for him rather than a necessary protection against the elements.

 

"I want to see what--" Viktor broke off, and Yuuri turned as he felt the ivy circlet tightening on his wrist. Viktor looked undertain, and Yuuri tried to nod to him in what he hoped was an encouraging way. "I want to see what Yuuri's life is like." Pronouncing a name casually was obviously new to Viktor, and he stumbled over it a little.

 

"The market's great!" Phichit said. "Especially this time of year. Less vegetables, more pastries and pies. And baskets. Weirdly always a lot of baskets around now. And sometimes hot spiced wine."

 

Viktor's ears perked up visibly at the mention of hot spiced wine. 

 

"Yuuri," he intoned. "Let's get some hot wine."

 

"Sure," Yuuri replied, amused. Did they not have hot spiced wine under the hill? He realized he had no idea what the fey usually ate. Flowers, maybe? But they wore those...the other archfey had mentioned something about eating Viktor's other cloak. Maybe they both wore and ate flowers? Yuuri shook his head.

 

As usual they heard the market about half a block before they could actually see it, the din and clamor of buying and selling rising in the air. Yuuri hurried ahead to the first shop, one of his favourites - a flower shop.

 

"Hi, Sara!" He greeted the owner, who was settling a bouquet of violets and greens into a basket. Inside the shop every horizontal surface was covered with flowers and greens. 

 

"Yuuri! Good to see you," Sara called back. "Mila told me about last night and I almost didn't believe it, but I guess that's him?" She waved her hand at Viktor and Phichit, who were catching up to them.

 

"Yup. I'm not sure how long he's here for," Yuuri said. "But that's v- ah, my fiancé. He's a little sensitive about names, so don't be offended if he won't tell you his. He doesn't mean any harm by it."

 

Sara giggled. "And what does he mean by that?" She looked pointedly over Yuuri's shoulder, and he turned to see his fiance chewing on what appeared to be a handful of thistle blossoms.

 

"Um, v-dear? What are you eating?" Yuuri asked, barely catching himself before pronouncing Viktor's name in public, which he knew would make the archfey uncomfortable.

 

"I like this market," Viktor declared, reaching into a bouquet and decapitating several more thistles. 

 

Sara was starting, Phichit was staring, Viktor was eating spiky flowers without paying for them first, and Yuuri had absolutely no idea what to do about any of this. 

 

_Well, ok_ , he realized, his brain lurching back to life, he knew what he could do about one of those things. 

 

"Ah, Sara, how much for the thistles?" Yuuri asked, trying to sound like someone who thought this was a completely normal thing to ask.

 

"Two bucks," Sara said, her stare not wavering from Viktor. "Gods, he's weird isn't he?"

 

"Right, thanks, we're going to go somewhere else now before this gets any weirder," Yuuri said, handing her the currency.

 

He grabbed Viktor's hand, causing the archfey to stiffen in surprise, and practically dragged him out of the stall. 

 

"You aren't supposed to take things from the shops without paying for them first," Yuuri said, attempting to sound stern. "Next time tell me if you want something and I'll get it for you."

 

Viktor had the grace to look somewhat chastened, and Phichit giggled. 

 

"This is awesome. I'm going to have the best campfire stories to tell about you two. It's going to be lit," he pronounced.

 

"The spiced wine shop is this way," Yuuri said, tugging on Viktor's hand. The ivy around his wrist tightened briefly and then relaxed.

 

"Let's go to Minako's!" Phichit suggested, catching up with them. 

 

Viktor stared at each market stall in turn as they passed them, Phichit maintaining a running commentary on which shops were his favourites and which establishments he was no longer allowed inside of due to excessive drunken singing with Yuuri. "But maybe Emil would let us back in if you were with us!" Phichit said brightly. "Because of diplomacy, or something?"

 

Viktor considered this. "I don't like ale."

 

Whenthe trio arrived at Minako's stall, Yuuri slipped inside to buy their wine while Phichit and Viktor waited outside. Explaining Viktor to his friends, family members, and every third person he met in town was beginning to get exhausting, and Yuuri hardly knew what to tell them anyway. _This is my fiancé, an archfey king? Don't cross him, because he's got a twisted understanding of fairness and quid pro quo?_  

 

Yuuri didn't even know how long Viktor intended to continue this game, if that's what it was. The archfey seemed generally blasé about their engagement and had followed Yuuri above ground on a whim. There was little reason at this poitn to believe that he intended this to be anything than an amusing divertissment for however long it took him to get bored of Yuuri and his boring, above-ground lifestyle. 

 

Yuuri told himself this sternly as he returned to Viktor and Phichit, and believed it until his fingers brushed the edges of Viktor's as he handed over his wine. The ivy on Yuuri's wrist tightened the instant their fingers touched, and Yuuri could have sworn that he saw Viktor's eyes grow wide. -It doesn't mean anything to him, he thought to himself sternly.

 

"Yuui, aren't you having any?" Viktor asked, sipping at his steaming cup of wine. 

 

Phichit giggled. "Yuuri tends to go off the rails a bit when he drinks."

 

"No, I'm just going back in for mine now," Yuuri said, heading back into Minako's shop to get his own. 

 

"Who's that out there?" Minako asked as she filled his cup. "He's pretty good looking."

 

"He's my fiancé," Yuuri snapped, the words coming out much more possessive and curt than he would have liked. "I'm sorry..." He muttered as Minako gaped at him. 

 

"You have a fiancé? How did I not know aobut this? When did you start dating?"

 

"It's um...kind of a weird story," Yuuri said. "We've only known each other a day."

 

"Since Halloween," Minako said.

 

"Yeah." Her gaze was a little too calculating for Yuuri's comfort, and he ducked out of the shop and hurried back to Phichit and Viktor.

 

"I'm back," Yuuri announced.

 

"Yuuuuuri," Viktor said, drawing out the vowel in his name as he got more comfortable pronouncing names in public, "Why didn't you tell me about this mortal drink before? It's so delicious I don't care if it traps me in your realm!" 

 

"I told you our food and drink doesn't work like that," Yuuri said, somewhat absently. The way the archfey had taken to saying his name was becoming distracting.

 

"You said your food doesn't work that way. You didn't say anything about drinks before," Viktor admonished. 

 

"Well, it's safe. It won't keep you from going back under the hill whenever you want," Yuuri said.

 

"Going back..." Viktor trailed off. "Hmm."

 

Phichit and Yuuri shared a baffled look. 

 

"Oh! We should take you to see the fountain in the middle of town!" Phichit announced. "It's pretty famous actually. People come from other villages to paint picture of their friends sitting around it. It's really cool!"

 

Viktor took another sip of his wine but said nothing. 

 

As the silence stretched to more than a few moments, Yuuri watched Viktor carefully. The ivy circlet around his wrist started to slowly loosen, and Yuuri felt sadness radiating from it, though he had no way to explain why he should know that. 

 

"Oh!" It was so obvious. "Viktor, we're not trying to get rid of you," Yuuri promised, forgetting to be careful about the archfey's name. -Running water - of course the archfey would not particularly care to visit that.

 

Viktor said nothing in reply, apparently letting the public use of his name slide, but Yuuri felt the ivy band return to it's original tightness around his wrist. _I've got to remember to ask him about that later_ , Yuuri decided. 

 

"Well, I should probably get back to work," Phichit said, unaware of the silent exchange between Yuuri and Viktor. "It was nice to meet you, Viktor."

 

The archfey king smiled thinly, but had the grace at least not to hiss at Phichit for using his name.

 

"Where do you want to go?" Yuuri asked when they were alone. 

 

Viktor's eyes wandered over the brightly colored market stalls, his attention wavering for a moment at another flower shop, then snapping back to Yuuri.

 

"Home," Viktor said.

 

The single word hit Yuuri like a ball of ice to the gut. 

 

"You...you want to go back under the hill?" Yuuri tried to keep his voice steady. 

 

"Your home," Viktor corrected.

 

"Oh. I...yes. I'd like that too," Yuuri said, something bright blooming in his chest. 

 

They finished their wine as they walked, mostly in silence, the few blocks from the market square to Yuuri's family's inn. The previous nice it had been too late, and too dark for the signs and banners to be visible, but now, Yuuri explained that his parents and sister ran a hot spring inn. 

 

At this, Viktor laughed, an odd, cold sound. "Yuuuuri! I can see in the dark," he said. "I can't read your human writing, though. Us Folk have no use for such things."

 

"Oh." Yuuri considered how best to explain the water aspect of his family's inn without sounding too threatening. "Well, we have these pools that are naturally hot? The water comes from underground," Yuuri attempted.

 

"Can we go in one?" Viktor's eagerness to try out the hot spring was confusing, and Yuuri said so.

 

"The village fountain was bad, but this is okay?" Yuuri asked, stopping on the threshold of the inn and looking back at Viktor, who was a few steps behind him.

 

"The pools belong to your family and you belong to me, so it's okay," Viktor explained.

 

_Ah. Transitive property again_ , Yuuri realized. 

 

"So the fountain is bad because it belongs to humans that don't belong to you?"

 

"Yes."

 

Viktor followed him through the house, waiting patiently as Yuuri collected a pair of the inn's green robes, then directd him to the bathhouse. 

 

"It's the cutsom to rinse off before going in the pools," Yuuri explained, to Viktor's obvious dissatisfaction. 

 

"Why?"

 

"Well...to get dust and dirt off, so that the water in the pools stays mostly clean."

 

"I'm not dirty."  To illustrate this, the archfey dropped his ivy robe, under which he was apparently still naked, and stared at Yuuri.

 

"Um." Yuuri tried to keep his eyes above Viktor's stomach. His fiancé's claim did indeed appear to be true; the dirt and grime that Yuuri had attracted throughout the day did not appear to have stuck to the archfey. "I guess you don't need to rinse off, then."

 

Viktor sniffed, and watched Yuuri curiously while he removed his clothes and hung them on a hook on the wall, rinsed off in the freezing water as fast as he could, then wrapped himself in one of the green robes.

 

"Okay, we leave our clothes here and then we can head out to the pools," Yuuri said, offering a robe to Viktor. "You can hang your cloak up next to my clothes," Yuuri said. "It's safe there, nobody will take it."

 

"I should hope not," Viktor hissed. "Any mortal foolish enough to try to steal my robe would burn for a thousand years the instant it touched their skin."

 

Yuuri was uncomfortably aware of the thin ivy vine circling his wrist. He hadn't attempted to remove it with the rest of his clothes, since it had no clasp of any kind and was much smaller than his hand. There seemed to be no way to get it off without breaking it, and the thought of that made him uneasy, though he didn't really understand why.

 

In the middle of the day, the pools were blessedly empty. Yuuri sank into the pool closest to the garden, figuring that Viktor would be most comfortable nearest the trees.

 

Viktor stood on the side of the pool, watching Yuuri, and after a few minutes nodded to himself, then slide ggracefully into the pool.

 

"Wow! Amazing!" Viktor breathedsliding over to sit beside Yuuri. "This water is the best!"

 

Yuuri giggled. "I think it's pretty great, yeah. It's nice to come out here and relax."

 

"We don't have hot water under the hill," Viktor said. "It's always cold."

 

"Well, you're always welcome to come to the onsen," Yuuri smiled. "Even after you leave."

 

"Leave?" Viktor frowned.

 

"I mean...I assume you'll go back underground at some point, right?" Yuuri asked. "You have your kingdom there to worry about, and I'm sure you'll get bored of following me around my regular life pretty soon." He tried to keep the disappointment from his voice.

 

"Yura will take care of things there," Viktor waved his hand dismissively. "I like it here!"

 

Yuuri stared at Viktor as he made this pronouncement. He hardly considered himself an expert on fey behaviour, but after the past day and a half he figured he was more of an expert than anyone else in town, and as far as he could discern Viktor looked absolutely serious.

 

"Really?" 

 

Viktor's ivy crown, which had previously seemed unaffected by the steam and humidity of the onsen, seemed to wilt a little. 

 

"I guess I can go if my fiancé wants me too..." he trailed off, morose. The ivy encircling Yuuri's wrist started to unravel.

 

"No! I want you to stay!" Yuuri blurted out. "I just...my life is probably boring compared with what you're used to."

 

"It's so boring underground," Viktor complained. "Nothing changes. No matter how much I try to surprise people it's always the same, and I'm tired of it."

 

"You can stay here as long as you want," Yuuri promised. The ivy around his wrist tightened, and Yuuri let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding.

 

"Good."

 

They sat in silence for awhile, Viktor dipping his head beneath the water, then emerging and reporting to Yuuri that there were water fey living in the hot springs' source and that they were suspicious of him.

 

"Oh, I know," Yuuri said. "Family tradition is that they protect the inn. We leave them offerings every other night."

 

"My Yuuri's so smart!" Viktor crowed. 

 

"I like the way you say my name," Yuuri said, blushing.

 

"I'm getting better at it. Yuuri. Yuuuuuri. Yuuuuuuuri," the archfey intoned. 

 

"Hey, Viktor, what's with this?" Yuuri asked, raising his right arm. 

 

"It's my ivy," Viktor replied.

 

"That...doesn't really clear it up," Yuuri said. "Sometimes it seems like it gets tighter? And other times looser. What's that about?"

 

"It sort of...echoes what I'm feeling," Viktor said, looking away from Yuuri as though the admission cost him something. "And it means you're mine. Other Folk won't try to claim you while you have it on."

 

"I'll be careful to keep it on, then," Yuuri answered.

 

"Good." Viktor was silent for awhile, watching Yuuri. 

 

"You didn't look at me earlier," the arcfey complained.

 

"What? When?" _I've been looking at you all day_ , Yuuri thought. _It's hard not to._

 

"When I took my cloak off before going in here. You didn't look at me," Viktor accused. "You don't want to look at me?"

 

-Oh.

 

"I very much want to look at you," Yuuri assured him. "I didn't know if you had...different customs around that kind of thing. I didn't want to offend."

 

"Your mortal custom is to have sex with one's fiancé," Viktor stated. 

 

Yuuri blushed. "Well...uh, yes, but also, when exactly did you learn this?"

 

"That other guy told me," Viktor answered, with his usual caginess around saying names other than Yuuri's. 

 

Yuuri guessed he meant either the other archfey who had been in the throne room underground, or Phichit.

 

"The guard, or the other archfey?"

 

"Guard." Viktor fixed Yuuri with a sincere gaze. "But he said even though it's the custom, you might not want to do that with me." Yuuri could hear the disappointment in his voice. He reached out and twined his fingers into Viktor's.

 

"I definitely want to do those things with you," Yuuri said, his voice soft but firm. "I didn't want to be forward. I don't know your customs."

 

"The Folk custom is to do whatever you want," Viktor said seriously. "And I want to go to bed with you."

 

Yuuri reached out and took Viktor's other hand.

 

"Well. In that case, Viktor, would you come to bed with me?" 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading <3 Please let me know what you think in the comments.


End file.
